Muhammad Hani al-Kasbah, a 17-year-old Palestinian, was shot dead by IDF commander Israel Shomer, early morning on Friday, after allegedly threatening Shomer’s life by throwing stones at the IDF commander’s vehicle near to Qalandiya checkpoint. General Roni Numa fully backed the brigade commander’s conduct saying, “the troops were in clear and present danger.”

“If a man comes to kill you, kill him first,” wrote Naftali Bennet, Israeli Education Minister, on his Facebook page.

He added, “I fully back the Brigade Commander who acted against a terrorist to protect himself and the lives of his soldiers. This is the conduct that we expect from IDF commanders. The nation of Israel stands behind you.”

According to the Times of Israel, a group of Palestinian youth started throwing stones at the IDF jeep at Qalandiya military checkpoint and damaged its windshield. The Brigade Commander exited the car and fired a warning shot into the air. When the throwing continued, he fired at the offenders injuring one of them.

Palestinian eyewitnesses reported that Muhammad Hani al-Kasbah, a teenage resident of the Qalandiya refugee camp, was shot by the IDF commander twice. One bullet hit his chest, the other his head. He was immediately transported to the Palestinian Medical Complex in Ramallah where he succumbed to his wounds within hours.

Military police opened an investigation into Hani Al-Kasbah’s death shortly after the incident. Meanwhile, the Israeli political and security establishments expressed their full support for Shomer’s handling of the situation.

Over 500 Palestinians attended Muhammed Hani Al-Kasbah’s funeral on Friday. The funeral procession went from the Palestinian Medical Complex to Al-Kasbah’s house in Qalandiya refugee camp and eventually to Al-Shuhadaa cemetery, where his body was buried alongside his two other brothers who were killed by the Israeli forces in 2001 and 2002 during the Second Intifada.

Rafaat Elian, Fatah’s spokesman in Jerusalem, told Haaretz, “This crime comes near the anniversary of a killing of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, and it shows that the government of Israel continues to draw the Palestinian people to direct confrontation.”

Muhammad Abu Khdeir was a Palestinian teenager from East Jerusalem who was kidnapped and burnt alive a year ago, on July 2, 2014, by Jewish extremists in revenge for the killing of three Israeli teenage settlers.

Nickolav Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, urged all parties to “supersize restraint, maintain calm, and promptly bring the perpetrators of the violence to justice,” Ma’an News Agency reported.

The incident at Qalandyia coincided with the scheduled UN Human Right’s Council (UNHRC) vote on the 'Gaza report’ that was published in late June and sparked controversy.

UNHRC endorsed the report’s findings by overwhelming majority with only five countries abstaining, among them Kenya, Ethiopia, Macedonia, India and Paraguay, and one vote against coming from the United States, whose representative said that the report was “biased against Israel”.

The resolution adopted during the UNHRC’s session called on both parties concerned to cooperate with the International Criminal Court and stressed the importance of holding those who had violated international humanitarian law during the Gaza War fully accountable through independent justice mechanisms.

Israel’s representative to the UNHRC denounced the resolution as “provocative” and added that it represents “an anti-Israeli manifesto,” Al-Monitor reported.